Hey everyone I thought I would document my isotretinoin journey on here. I am a 23 year old female and I have had mild persistent acne for as long as I can remember but I have been going to the dermatologist for it for about 8 years now. I've been on all sorts of stuff for my acne and nothing has really cleared me up 100% but my acne was pretty manageable for short periods of time. I started on prescription topical medications back when I first went to the dermatologist when I was 15 (antibiotic topical, sulfur wash, azaleac acid, retin-a) and then was on doxycycline for several years until I was 18 and transitioned to taking birth control for my acne. I had a few months of overlap taking oral antibiotics with the birth control since every time I tried to get off the antibiotics my skin would flare up pretty badly. I have some small pimples but my main problem is these large painful cystic pimples that take what seems like forever to go away. The antibiotics and later birth control helped with them and then I was just on birth control and OTC topical (benzoyl peroxide and acne washes) until a year ago. I started vet school in august 2014 and my skin started breaking out again in January 2015. I went to the dermatologist and started adapalene as well as a topical antibiotic (clindamycin phosphate) and a sulfur wash. My skin broke out worse than I ever remembered it being for months when I first started the adapalene. One year later and my skin has never been worse. I persisted through the red inflamed face I had with the adapelene because I wanted to give it a good try and commit to it but I am still on it and while some of the irritation has subsided I started getting cysts again persistently in october of 2015. It started off with one that eventually faded and then they became more frequent and painful. I had an appointment with my dermatologist today and have registered for iPLEDGE so now I am waiting the one month until I can have my blood work done and take the second pregnancy test. I have before pictures that I am planning on posting and I want to post pictures of my progress. Also I haven't found many examples of people going on accutane for mild but persistant acne so i wanted to add my journey to that small group. I was relieved to find my dermatologist was very willing to start the actuate process with me although my skin is looking pretty bad lately with several large painful red lumps so maybe that helped convince her! I'll be back to update when I get my first month of pills! I'm excited and just glad that I am doing something about my acne since the other things clearly aren't working.